A Human Rights Analysis of a Risk Assessment Instrument in Child Welfare

Although social work has long expressed support for human rights principles, scholarship in this area suggests that many social workers still struggle to apply human rights principles to practice. This paper aims to help address this gap by illustrating how a common human rights principle, the right to be free from discrimination, can be applied to a popular risk assessment tool used by social workers in the child welfare system in Ontario, Canada. This paper draws on case examples and knowledge from the field of law to highlight how this risk assessment instrument may increase the tendency of social workers to violate this right. It then offers suggestions about how social workers can modify their practice to better comply with their human rights obligations.